


hymn for her

by seemeeimbeebee



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seemeeimbeebee/pseuds/seemeeimbeebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Emma is the one to sacrifice herself to save the darkness and not Killian.Spoilers through 5x11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hymn for her

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr (demisexualemmaswan).

Henry is screaming, and Killian feels a million miles away. The boy has broken free of Regina’s hold, and he’s pleading for Emma to just _wake up_.

_Please, please, Mom. Just wake up. You’re not allowed to just leave me. You’re not. I need more time! There wasn’t enough time! Mom, Mom, please wake up..._

* * *

It all happened so fast. 

He can still see the defiant gleam in Emma’s eyes--a gleam that will never be there again no matter how much Henry cries--as Nimue choked her. The moment he comes back to himself because Emma, his Emma, is in trouble and he needs to have her back because that’s what they do.

Except he can’t do that anymore.

He’s replaying that awful moment where they make eye contact and he knows exactly what she plans to do. She’s making the choice to save them all, because that’s what she does.

He tosses Excalibur to her, and she runs herself through it. In a flash of white-- as the other Dark Ones disappeared with a horrible shriek--they become Emma and Killian again.

It’s so good to see her in her red leather jacket and her hair down. She’s staring past him for a moment, her face momentarily twisted in confusion and horror. 

He pulls out the blade and ignores the sound it makes because it makes his stomach curl. 

Emma turns her gaze to him, so full of love and joy. It kills him that her joy comes from seeing him as the hero, the good man she always believed him to be. “I love you,” she whispers to him, grinning weakly. Her hand comes up to stroke his cheek. “I love you so much. You know that, don’t you?”  


“I love you too,” Killian chokes out, cradling her close. Her knees buckle and he catches her, pressing her as close to him as he can manage. He buries his face in her hair. “Save your strength. You’re going to be okay. It’s okay, Emma. It’s okay. I have you. I love you. You’ve done so well. You’re brilliant, you know that? It’s gonna be okay, Emma...”  


Her eyes slip shut. Her hand falls away.

He keeps telling her he loves her, even after she stops breathing.

* * *

The paramedics come to take her away. 

He bleakly looks around the circle. 

Snow and David are barely holding each other up. He look of utter devastation on David’s face is enough to make him look away. Just how many times have the Charmings dealt with losing their daughter before losing her for good?

Regina’s face is hidden away in Robin’s shoulder. She’s crying, though for Emma or Henry or both he’ll never know. Robin is trying to console her, but he too looks a little lost. He can see t he question in Robin’s face that they’re all wondering but no one will ask:  _What hope do we have if there’s no Savior?_

Except she has always been more than the Savior to him. She’s Emma. His love, his light, his life and now she’s gone. She has made the ultimate sacrifice for them. He can’t be prouder, and his heart can’t be breaking any more than it already is. 

Rumpelstiltskin is gone. _The ungrateful bastard_ , Killian thinks. 

Henry will not be moved from his mother’s side. He still keeps insisting that his mother is going to wake up, and they can’t take her away. He’s so much stronger than anyone gives him credit for, and it kills him to see the boy he would’ve liked to call “son” some day look like this. 

The paramedics look to Killian helplessly.  

Killian shakes his head to pull himself out of his stupor and walks over to Henry. “Lad,” he says softly, not trusting his voice to do more than that. “They’ve got to take her away.”

“No, no, don’t give up on her. We thought she was going to go dark, and she fought for so long. She can fight this too,” Henry cries, tears running down his cheeks. “She always comes back...she has to come back!”   


“I know,” Killian tells the boy. He gently pries Henry’s hands out of Emma’s red leather coat. For a moment, he remembers the small boy bounding after Emma when he first got to Storybrooke. Tears come to his eyes. “I’m sorry, lad,” he says, barely holding on now. “I’m so sorry.”   


Henry crumples and cries into his jacket when they take Emma away. When the paramedics finally turn the corner and disappear into the night, Killian allows himself to break down too.

* * *

They bury Emma on a sunny day. 

It is painfully warm and sunny, even though it’s the perfect day if it weren’t for the cloud of grief threatening to suffocate him. 

It’s the kind of weather that Emma would’ve run around their front yard in without any shoes on. Perhaps with a little blond haired boy, or a dark haired little girl with curls like her mother’s.

The whole town comes. They say words, and Killian can’t hear them over the buzzing in his ears. The only thing he registers is Henry’s hand slipped in his. The boy hasn’t said a word since that night by the lake. Neither has he. 

There’s nothing to say, not really. 

Archie asks Killian if he’d like to speak. Everyone’s eyes are on him. Some filled with sadness, others with sympathy, and some with the loathing that Killian piles onto himself when he’s alone.

He looks down at the tombstone and swallows the lump in his throat. He stands there and reads the marble because he can’t bare to look at anyone else.

Emma Swan. Everyone must leave something behind when they die. Beloved mother, daughter, sister, friend and Savior. His eyes blur with tears when he gets to her life, measured up in two measly dates and a dash. They’re not enough to sum up the light Emma brought to others, the laughter, the fierce, loving protectiveness.  

“Thank you. For saving me.”

It’s too much.

It’s not enough.

* * *

He stays behind because it seems too ridiculous to go back to Granny’s and eat and talk about her. Henry opts to stay with him. They just sit quietly for a moment in the grass.

Henry’s taken off his dress shoes. A wind picks up and gently brushes the grass against the boy’s ankles. Something brushes against Killian’s hand.

It’s a white feather.

A swan feather.

He turns it over in his hands, and sees in black ink: _Still working my way back to you, babe._

Oh, his Swan is brilliant. 


End file.
